Neurology in the UK

I’ve just found this on the announcements for the Wellcome Trust’s Small Arts Awards grant scheme. It’s a proposed art / science project that combines neurology, computational modelling, robots and punk rock!

Neurotic questions the neurology associated with the essential human experience of pleasure, learning, taste and aging in the context of the instinct to dance. The project, which involves a collaboration between a neurologist, a computational biologist, punk musicians and a robotics artist, culminates in a live performance at the ICA. Punk band Neurotic will play to an audience of both humans and a group of robots whose cognition is modelled on brain function. The human-sized robots will ‚Äòpogo‚Äô alongside the human audience when their neural networks, modelled on real neural pathways, are appropriately stimulated by the music. The event will be accompanied by discussions on the role of memory, emotion and cultural context in the development of taste in humans and a website which explores neuroscientific issues raised by the research and performance.

Rock on! I can’t wait to see it completed. The full list includes many more innovative art / science collaborations.

Link to full list of Wellcome Trust Small Arts Awards funded projects list.

Full disclosure: I’ve been involved in Wellcome funded art / science projects and am an occasional grant reviewer for the scheme.